


Wingman and Bird Lady

by keeptheearthbelow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Contemporary AU, F/M, rogue poultry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeptheearthbelow/pseuds/keeptheearthbelow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta wakes up in confusion, head aching – must’ve had a couple too many beers with Finnick last night after a long sweaty day of the two of them moving all his furniture and boxes. But what woke him up … is he seriously hearing a rooster right now? Written for Prompts in Panem round 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wingman and Bird Lady

Peeta wakes up in confusion, head aching – must’ve had a couple too many beers with Finnick last night after a long sweaty day of the two of them moving all his furniture and boxes. But what woke him up … is he seriously hearing a rooster right now?

He stumbles out of bed and around some boxes. The early morning light is painfully bright. Priority one will be to install blinds over these French doors. Well, the real priority one is to figure out this potential chicken situation. He peers around his new backyard.

Movement over by the fence – but not a bird. It’s the top of a head, somebody hopping to get glimpses over the tall wooden slats. Then a pair of wiry brown hands grip the top of the boards and a young woman scrambles up and over and lands in his yard. Jesus – she’s beautiful, and she maybe just woke up too, because she’s wearing some really short pajama shorts and her dark hair is a mess.

She sprints silently across his yard and tackles a shape he can hardly see at the edge of the bushes lining the yard. When she climbs to her feet, she’s holding, yes, a rooster. It squawks in her arms as she trots back toward her side of the fence.

Peeta pulls open the door and steps out on the patio, shielding his eyes from the sun, feeling like he should say something.

The woman freezes and turns toward him, looking simultaneously cornered and offended.

“I’m going right back to my yard,” she says before he can open his mouth. “Sorry to intrude. I was just getting … something I lost.” As if he might not have noticed it’s a chicken.

Peeta scratches his head. Belatedly, he realizes you should probably put a shirt on to talk to your new neighbors. But … “Are you seriously holding a rooster?” _That’s the best he’s got?_

She lifts her chin. “Yes. He hardly ever gets out of the fence. And I have more chickens too, and they’re all legal, and if your realtor didn’t tell you that, it isn’t my problem.”

He waves his hand, trying to let her know he isn’t accusing her of anything, when he hears a sliding door open. He turns to find Finnick wandering onto the patio from the living room, where he crashed on the couch for the night. And he at least put a shirt on, but he doesn’t even look hung over, damn him.

Finnick grins and, since he seems constitutionally incapable of _not_ introducing himself to pretty ladies, comes toward the woman with his hand outstretched. “Morning.”

She neither smiles in response nor gives him a “why are you flirting with me” kind of look. Peeta isn’t sure he’s ever seen Finnick get any reaction other than those two options. She doesn’t even respond to the handshake, although that’s possibly due to the need to contain the chicken.

Finnick, only sightly deterred, just drops his hand and stops and says, “So, my buddy Peeta here just got moved in yesterday. And I’m Finnick. Nice to meet you.”

“Katniss,” she says semi-unwillingly, seeming to have far fewer words available if they’re to do with social niceties instead of poultry and trespassing.

Peeta wanders up to her and figures, _what the hell_ , and tries holding out his hand to the rooster.

The rooster, from within her arms and its fluffed-up many-colored feathers, gives him the side-eye from several angles. Then it pecks at his fingers experimentally, which hurts but not much, and, finding nothing relevant to its interests, ignores him.

Its owner, Katniss, likewise eyes him sidelong.

“Seems like a nice bird,” he offers.

Her shoulders visibly relax. Has she been thinking this whole time he’s about to call animal control or somebody for having chickens inside city limits? But her voice is still a bit wary when she says, “Yeah, they all are.”

“This guy and … hens? Do you keep them for eggs?”

“Yeah. They’re Ameraucanas. They lay these kind of blue-green eggs.”

Finnick’s jaw drops. “Like green eggs and ham?”

She frowns at him. “No.”

He seems disappointed.

At that moment there arises from Katniss’s side of the fence a honk that is definitely not a chicken sound.

Peeta looks back at Katniss. She is suddenly flushed and looking cornered again.

“You can keep geese in the city too?”

But she doesn’t answer – an answer in itself. Finnick looks at Peeta dubiously.

“You must really like birds,” Peeta muses eventually.

“I do. It was my uncle’s goose. Look, don’t report me, please,” she says in a quiet rush.

“Why, what all do you have?” he says curiously.

She blows out a hard breath and says, “Chickens and a goose and quail. And a canary, but that’s indoors. And guinea hens.”

“What?” Such a long list.

“Guineas. They eat all the ticks. Look, I … I didn’t mean to be a crazy bird lady. The chickens were my sister’s and the canary was my mother’s and I promise you, I gave eggs to the folks who used to live here and it all worked out pretty well.”

He blinks, and his hungover mind zooms outward a bit and looks at all these idiots in their sleep clothes standing barefoot in the yard of his new house, one of them clutching an antsy rooster. He has to laugh. He tilts his head back to the morning sky.

“Tell you what,” he says to her, “I’d love to see these green eggs. And it’s nice to meet you, and … let’s all go get dressed, and then you bring eggs over if you have some, and I’ll make us omelets. And Finn will … what do you even do? Make coffee.”

Finnick snorts with laughter. “Works for me.”

Katniss considers, then nods. “I’m hungry, so, okay. Back soon.”

She heads for the fence, and before it occurs to him to suggest she go around to the front, she gently lobs the bird over the top and then nimbly hoists herself back across, her bare toes hardly seeming to touch the wood.

“Glad I went to get groceries yesterday,” Peeta mutters as they head back across the grass.

Finnick waits till they’re inside the house, then aims a finger at Peeta. “First, go brush your teeth. Second, I’ll be your wingman with regard to the bird lady. This is going to be a great breakfast.”


End file.
